Urban Planning ed. by Andrew I. Cavin

book jacket photo Chicago skylineUrban Planning [part of The Reference Shel series] edited by Andrew I. Cavin (2003)

This book provides multiple points of view by many authors on various aspects of managing and visualizing what would be best for cities to implement to meet contemporary needs. I have lived all over the country and in all kinds of sizes of cities and geology and weather and with all kinds of transportation options or lack of options. I visited many more cities, here and I have been to multiple countries in Europe always using public transportation and once in a tour bus. I took the most terrifying taxi ride of my life in Boston during The Big Dig. Another Boston experience that didn’t work out like I thought it would involved taking the T with a roller suitcase and finding the streets piled with several feet of snow and still snowing while I tried to get from the T stop to the hotel. Roller suitcases do not slide on snow, they become snow shovels.

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Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement by Thomas Geoghegan (2 of 2)

only one thing can save us now a new kind of labor movement book jacketOnly One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement by Thomas Geoghegan (2 of 2)

Carrying on from part 1 of my commentary about this book, he starts chapter 4 off with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike of 2012.  The author mentions that in his youth he was a “lawyer for the United Mine Workers” so he knew that strikes were risky but “it’s still hard to imagine a labor movement without them.”

I remember reading about the strike but was not aware of any details. I just assumed that they were getting screwed over somehow, because strikes are risky things! And for some reason, Republicans hate teachers, and especially hate tenured teachers. Whenever I hear someone bitch about the luxury lifestyle of “three months vacation” and “high pay” I know I am listening to a Republican.

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The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish & other great memoirs

book jacket partial image of the author Tiffany HaddishThe Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish (2017)

Wow! Awesome memoir. Brutally honest and terrifying . Hearing the true stories like this by Haddish and other women has profoundly moved me to tears with gasps of horror followed by great respect for what they have had to deal with to get to this point. To be alive, in fact. To dare to be happy. To succeed. She was a great guest on The Daily Show around January 2018 or so (I think).

“Hunger” by Roxanne Gay also creates an intense and intimate experience of her life through her memoir. Darn it, I can’t find a post on it but I read it book jacket of Hunger by Roxane Gay with partial image of spoonBad Feminist by Roxanne Gay a memoir simple text book jacketand it was great, sad, and distressing to learn of the life experiences of one of the most amazing minds and writers alive today. Author of the Must Read book “Bad Feminist.” Well I can’t find that review either. Maybe I read it before beginning this blog. It is certainly seared into my mind.

Sara Benincasa

“Agoraphabulous!” by Sara Benincasa, another funny woman that defies the odds to survive — and to benefit all of us by sharing her story too — is a memoir of another woman saved perhaps by a sense of humor and sheer determination.

 

 

 

 

Horsemen of the Trumpacoplypse by John Nichols

bright yellow book jacket with a graphic of a cowboy on a galloping horse holding a rifle looking back over his shoulder with the face of Donald Trump added where an original face was onceHorsemen of the Trumpacoplypse: A field guide to the most dangerous people in America by John Nichols (2017)

Dangerous people are controlling and embellishing the wickedness of authoritarian zealots in the United States alternate reality government of 2017 and onward so far in 2018.

I best post this soon, while I have been writing this the people in the administration are leaving the White House by the dozens. The Horsemen mentioned include women and men, outsiders as well as political operatives.

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Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement by Thomas Geoghegan (1 of 2)

only one thing can save us now a new kind of labor movement book jacketLabor has lost all power in the face of the onslaught of “free market” lies put forth by Republicans and Neoliberals alike. No, the “invisible hand of the market” will not save us. It will strangle us, that much is certain. That’s why slavery was invented: rich people didn’t want to have to pay for necessary labor and didn’t want to do shitty jobs themselves.
Similarly, apart from the nonexistence of a truly “free” market out there (buy the little competitors up and kill their business or co-opt for their de facto monopolies) PROFIT MOTIVE will always seek to take from labor. Capitalists do not respect any labor right to the value of labor’s own production; only the “money men” deserve reward for the fact that they had money in the first place (inherited wealth in particular) or earned through exploitation of other people and the environment.
The full title of the book actually is:  Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement by Thomas Geoghegan (2014).

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